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Gossip: Guardiola, Ronaldo, Stones, Butland

Date published: Sunday 29th November 2015 11:54

GUARDIOLA TO UNITEDIt’s like a warped version of Groundhog Day, where every day we read that Pep Guardiola is coming to a different Premier League club. In the last week we have read links to Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea. The Sunday Telegraph bring up the Manchester United angle.

New signing Sam Wallace has the big claim, reporting that Pep ‘is understood to see Manchester United as his preferred move’.

Crucially, Wallace only says ‘potentially’ next summer. The obvious thing would be for Guardiola to slum it for another year in Munich, before taking over when Louis van Gaal’s contract ends.

RONALDO READY TO RETURN. YAWNFair play to Simon Mullock, who has the 359th different inside track on Cristiano Ronaldo. Despite the Mirror actually having a correspondent living full-time in Madrid, it’s Stammers who has got the big news that Ronaldo ‘is ready’ to return to Manchester United.

That’s despite Ronaldo himself saying that he will stay at Real Madrid for the foreseeable future, and his agent Jorge Mendes saying that he will stay there for the rest of his career.

Mullock really has got all the juicy lines, straight from the horse’s mouth. He says that Ronaldo loves United and the Premier League, and accepts that moving to Paris St Germain will do nothing for his reputation.

ARSENAL IN FOR STONESAdmit it, you were impressed by Simon Mullock’s info in the last section weren’t you? Well he’s not the only on in the Sunday Mirror.

‘Arsenal are set to enter the race for John Stones,’ is Steve Stammers’ line. ‘Set to enter’ is an odd abstract concept to use. Surely the moment you decide you want a player then you’ve effectively ‘entered the race’, given that such a race doesn’t exist. For Stammers to find out that Arsenal want him, the starting gun must already have been sounded? We digress.

The following line did at least make us chuckle: ‘Stones’s emergence as one of the most promising central defenders in the country has been noted at Arsenal’. My my, what a keen eye they have.

Anyway, Stammers says that Arsene Wenger could ‘spend big’ on Stones, who even he accepts Everton don’t want to sell. Not gonna happen, is it?

LIVERPOOL AND EVERTON WANT BUTLANDJack Butland’s reputation continues to grow, with the Stoke goalkeeper now firmly established as England’s No. 2. The next step along the road is to move to a big club, and the People (newspaper, rather than England’s entire population) report that Liverpool and Everton are both eyeing a move for him.

A move to Liverpool does make a good deal of sense, with Simon Mignolet still feels like a temporary option at Anfield. Can’t see Everton paying £17m for him though, which is the touted figure.

AND THE RESTEverton, Tottenham, Aston Villa, Swansea and Bournemouth all scouted Bordeaux winger Henri Saivet… Tottenham are willing to use Andros Townsend as part of their deal for West Brom striker Saido Berahino… Fulham are keen on Rangers boss Mark Warburton to become their new manager… Arsenal are favourites to sign Germany midfielder Lars Bender from Bayer Leverkusen… West Ham are reviving their interest in Inter Milan full-back Danilo D’Ambrosio